Ish Shrpicka Kine Doytch: I don´t Speak German (spelled phonetically)

The Positives: from NYC it´s only seven hours to Frankfurt instead of eight or nine from O´Hare; I made it onto the flight that was not cancelled; I had my own television screen with hundreds of On Demand movie and TV options; I got two meals and one snack on the plane; free booze.

The Negatives: the dude in front of me was a gigantic, seat recliner. Not only did he recline his seat manually, he was such a huge German that the simple act of sitting in his seat dropped his head rest into my forehead.

But the list of The Positives outweighs that of The Negatives and I made it to Frankfurt after two mindless romantic comedies, three sitcoms, and zero sleep.

I thought that I was hoping on a train and heading to Cologne for the SC Freiburg v. FC Cologne futbol match. But right out of baggage claim I saw Andrew´s smiling face and my concerns about reading and travelling alone in Germany were gone. Andrew was there with Daniel and Mark, two friends of his and two absolute nuts for SC Freiburg. We rushed to Daniel´s car to embark on the 200 km trip to Cologne. I was tossed a beer (legal in Germany) and Daniel took off at a cool 200kph - Autobahn bitches.

Daniel is the father of the family Andrew babysits for and is an incredibly gernously man. He has provided Andrew with countless futbol tickets, always buys the beers, hosted us for dinner at his restaurant, and always seems to know someone or someway to help out. Very good guy.

The ramifications of the Cologne game were huge. There are three German soccer leagues: first, second, and third leagues. The best league is First League and each year, the top two finishers from the Second League get to move into First League and the bottom two First Leaguers move down. The third place finisher and the third to last finisher play a two game series for moving or staying rights. The same occurs between the Second and Third Leagues.

SC Freiburg won the Second League last season and was currently sitting in 14th Place of the First League, one spot out of the play in/out game. A win or a tie would guarantee another season in First League.

We settled into the Freiburg, standing room only section of Colgne´s very modern, 50,000 seat stadium. The place was filled before kick-off. In stark contrast to an American anything, the Freiburg section of the stadium was sold only non-alcoholic beer. An effort to minimize in raucous.

Whether it worked or not, I´m not sure, but as Frieburg took a second half 2-1 lead, our section quickly became a falling room only section. Any respects for personal space were ignored as SCF moved one step closer to remaining in the First League.

FC Cologne would score a late tying goal, but the scrappy Freiburg team would maintain the tie and when the final whistle blew, I saw the happiest 14th Place finisher I´d ever seen. Daniel described it as ¨better than Christmas day¨and ¨better than last season´s championship.¨

However you slice it, I was happy for the Freiburg faithful and exhausted. Standing for two-and-a-half hours after not sleeping for hours just off a plane is some difficult stuff. So, as Ska music blared through Daniel´s speakers and we cruised at 200-plus kph, I fell fast asleep.

Then slept a good 12 hours that night.

Germany was not like my previous few stops; it was cold, overcast, and a bit rainy. I wouldn´t see the sun for more than an hour until I´d reached the one-week mark in Europe. When it did finally arrive, it made for an absolutely gorgeous day in Freiburg, Germany´s - if not the world´s - greenest city.

This place is extremely earth concious with an incredible public transportation system, solar panels on nearly every roof, friendly bike lanes, and various other eco-boosters such as rooftop gardens and a daily farmer´s market. Andrew works for Rolf Disch, arguably the world´s foremost green architect. He built his home to rotate with the sun to maximize it´s efficiency and power generation producing 4x the amount of energy it consumes, a ¨Solar Settlement¨with 50 houses each with a positive energy balance (makes more energy than it uses), and the ¨Solar Ship,¨a completely modern and realisitic urban complex complete with grocery store, pharmacy, office space, and rooftop housing with all the bells and whistles of energy conservation. It´s an impressive sight. The soccer team - which is publically owned - provided season tickets for investors in the stadiums solar renovation in which they put solar panels on the roof to heat the team´s showers.

My first few days in Germany were spent adjusting to the time change. I must admit I made little effort to adjust because I was thoroughly enjoying sleeping as much as I wanted. I suppose I still haven´t really adjusted as I´m maintaining about a 2am bedtime. Oh well, such is doing whatever I want.

I explored Frieburg and found it to be a very beatiful and active city. It sits in the southwest corner of Germany in the Black Forest, home evidentally, of Black Forest chocolate cake. I have yet to partake.

Andrew and I hung out for the most part and didn´t push my exhaustion limits. We had a great time going out and partying Euro, techno, dance-style and we even stole a lamp from the club. I tagged along with Andrew when he babysat Gurtz, Daniel´s 5-year-old son. Gurtz is an adorable kid who speaks no English but we managed to bond. We took Gurtz to a kid´s warehouse filled with jumping castles, trampolines, a super-sized McDonald´s playpen thing, soccer field/basketball court, and scooters galore. It was amazing and could be argued Andrew and I had more fun than Gurtz.

Mid-week I was off to Switzerland for some solo travels to let Andrew go to school and work in peace. I took an easy and direct three hour train ride to cold, rainy, and cloudy Interlaken. This town is an outdoorsmen´s paradise. There are tons of hiking and biking trails and an overall focus on outside activities. It´s like a Boulder or Tahoe.

I stayed in a dorm style hostel and managed to meet lots of fun people in the midst of their own adventures. I enjoyed Steve´s story. He was a dude who´d been laid-off, moped about it for a short time, got his ass in gear with a construction gig, saved, then hit the road until the money ran out. I loved that he didn´t just settle for something he didn´t want. He was presented lemons and made lemonade.

The temp sat around 8-10 degrees celcius while I was there and rained most of my first day. Because it was so cold, I felt less than motivated to participate in many of the water oriented activities (rafting, canyoning) in Interlaken. Instead, I chose to hike the whole place. I bussed out to and toured the St. Beatrus caves. Very cool. The huge Germany family that also toured was extremely loud, but it made me want to go to Karchner Caverns, right in my Tucson backyard which I have not yet done. I then hiked home, leisurely squeezing it into 3.5 hours. It was unfortunately cloudy so I could not see the epic Swiss Alps. The brief moments of cloudlessness provided some breathtaking glimpses of the mountains. I suppose I have to return.

I spent my Interlaken nights at the hostel´s basement club. It was loud but fun, overly populated by locals but fantastic people watching. The details are not important, but in summary, I played the role of self-proclaimed ordained minister for an American-Swiss wedding one night at the hostel. I pronounced them ¨International Man and Domestic Wife.¨ Sometimes, shit gets weird on the road.

While in Switzerland, I learned why the Swiss had created and mastered the multi-use pocket knife commonly known as a Swiss Army Knife: the Swiss need to get multiple uses out of everything because everything is so damn expensive in that country that you can´t afford to have 17 different tools. Holy smokes.

I returned to Freiburg for another futbol match and weekend with Andrew. This game was a friendly one and had nothing riding on it. However, it was the last game of the season and there would be free beer after the game. The catch - and it´s a brilliant one - is most people barely make it through the game to the free beer. You see, all the drinking is done before and during the game. By the time we arrived, I was far too many beers and mixed drinks in to continue drinking at the stadium; but I did anyway. It all makes sense now why whenever the home team scores, people go nuts and spill beers everywhere and all over one another: they´re simply getting rid of the beer they can´t drink anymore. Brilliant.

Freiburg won the game, 3-1, and will stay in the First League. It was an incredible atmosphere at the home stadium and is comparable to college football games; except their season is some 35-plus games long, not eleven.

We lazily worked through the rest of the day, revelling in the beauty of a sunny day and the Freiburg victory. The city trains were packed with excitable fans, chanting and singing their joy.

And so my time in Germany comes to an end. I have one day remaining in which Andrew and I are going to do some hiking and cook a giant international feast with some of his roommates. It´s then off to Paris and I-don´t-know-wherelse beyond that.

Happy Mother´s Day.

And Then There Was One.

Approximately 12 years ago, my family and I took Esapnol classes in Monteverde, Costa Rica. Twelve years later, I returned to find that....the streets were paved.

This is a moderately quiet mountain town renowned for it's cloud forests. A cloud forest is like a rain forest but its wet nature is sustained by rain and cloud moisture. I extensively hiked each of the cloud forests and was impressed by the green. There was green everywhere. Green leaves on green branches from green trees covered in green moss snacked on by green bugs. Unfortunately I didn't get to see a Quetzal, the beautiful and rare national bird of Costa Rica.

I took residence at the first hostel I came to when I was dropped at the adjacent and more accessible Santa Elena. I could research and obtain the hostel's name but I wouldn't be doing justice to the fact that the entire time I was there I didn't know its name.

The staple of my stay in Monteverde/Santa Elena was "The Common Cup." The CC was in its 24th day of existence when I meandered in for a free coffee roasting class. What I didn't know, is that The CC also gives free cups of coffee and is evidently a gringo magnet. I suppose that's what signs in English will do.

The CC is run by a fast talkin' Georgian named Ken who has lived in Costa Rica for five years, is married to a Tica, has Tican step-kids, owns a coffee farm, and now The CC. His motivation for The CC was to provide a hub for travelers and locals to freely enjoy a cup of Joe that had been freshly picked, roasted, and brewed in town. The CC makes its money from selling bags of coffee for $8/pound, 40% of which goes to fund youth programs in town. Somewhere in the monetary equation of The CC the farmer sees a 400% increase in what he usually would get for a pound of coffee beans. I'm unsure of the mathematics, but Ken said-so.

I used The CC as my own hub-o-friendship. I met a Minnesotan teaching at an international school in the Dominican, an aspiring filmmaker from Philly, a post-grad traveler from LA, and some medical missionaries from Portland. Basically I was the creepy regular at the coffee shop there to pick up friends. It only moderately worked.

My greatest friend success was while pa-rousing the streets, a favorite pastime of mine. I overheard English and slowed my gait to allow the Gringos to catch up. Andres and Nick were from LA and traveling with friends. We had no real destination so I suggested we visit my brother and my hangout from Monteverde circa '97: a small park at the bottom of a dirt road with hiking trails and a waterfall. We completed a hike which turned out to be far more difficult than any of us had anticipated. But we survived and I scored a dinner date with the five Los Angelians. During our hike I discovered that Andres' girlfriend was Jewish so when I arrived for dinner I brought a box of wine and the most Jewish bread they had: bagels. I later realized that it was also Passover and bread's a no-no, but it was the thought that counts.

All-in-all, Monteverde was a success. I didn't have much of a social life but I got lots of hiking in, tons of pictures (I took advantage of the auto-timer on my camera for self-portraits), caught the Final Four, and slept miserably as I had the creepiest room in the unnamed hostel, not to mention the Costa Rican snoring champion next door.

A note: don't sign up for a tour unless you know for CERTAIN there are other people going. For a friendless traveler to take an adventure tour alone with just two Costa Rican guides is uncomfortable, moderately embarrassing, and dull.

Off to Arenal, Costa Rica's most popular active volcano.

I took the Jeep-Boat-Jeep shuttle service (lack of a better term) to drive, float, then drive to the lava. As fate would have it, three young school teachers from New Jersey were making the same multivehicular transfer. Slowly, conversation between the four of us grew and I was invited to have lunch with them. Then we found a hostel together (or rather it found us as we were pitched the appeals of Cabinas Jerry four times over). Then we found a tour together (again, courtesy of a multiple sales pitches). Then we shared 32oz beers together. Then we took the tour together.

I'll take a break from the together lines and describe what our $35-a-head tour got us: transport to a resort's free volcano observation deck, a guided hike through the resort's gardens, a swim under a waterfall (cool), a hike across and immediately back across a hanging bridge, 1.5 hours watching the volcano at night (yes we saw lava but overstayed our desire to be there as our guide, Julio, watched an important soccer match - and yes, I did just call it soccer Julio, suck it), a borrowed flashlight trek to the natural hot springs (which seemed to be runoff from the adjacent resort but we'll give Julio the benefit of the doubt), and a whole lot of drawn out stops for animals including a dead snake and bad canibus jokes. Needless to say, the Julio Tour Company, sucks.

But, as every cloud has a silver lining, I found mine in bonding with Steve, Megan, and Kelly of the Garden State. Traveling on their spring break, they found it in them to take in this ginger bearded loner from Arizona. We added one more, Steph of Santa Barbara, to the Wolf Pack and called ourselves the Buellers or members of a traveling circus. The Bueller thing doesn't make much sense and probably doesn't merit mentioning but there is a white bearded man in San Ramon, Costa Rica who may or may not believe that we were all traveling separately and coincidentally found one another each with the same last name.

Upset with the scam we'd just had pulled on us we decided to get out of dodge. We headed to San Ramon, possibly the least tourist friendly city in Costa Rica, but with a diverse bus system that would allow each party to conveniently travel on. But before we parted ways, there was beer to be drank.

After finding and price pointing each of San Ramon's three hotels, we settled on the nicest, La Posada, which offered us a cash only, tax-free room for $85 for three guests. That's right, three guests. We slyly pulled a quick one and slept five to that room. Booyah.

With a place to stay it was time to belly up to San Ramon. It was remarkably difficult to find a restaurant/bar but when we did and we made it last. The five of us sat and drank and ate for a good two-hours before we left to do the same thing at the park, this time with more 32's. When those were gone we needed ice cream and ran into another La Posada guest, Bill from Alaska. An extremely interesting and warm man, he bought us all cones and offered Steph and me a ride to San Jose in the morning. After free ice cream, it was on to 30 beers. Followed, much later, by a beer run for one more sixer.

All-in-all my solo travels were not so solo. I met fun, like-minded folks who were simply enjoying an adventure of their own. Whether it was seven days or seven months, everyone had stepped out of their box and into a little discomfort, something new. While traveling and meeting these discoverers, I couldn't help but think of Chris McCandless, the mysterious post-grad and subject of "Into The Wild." McCandless died alone, only to discover that life is best lived when shared.

We said our goodbyes and after spending an afternoon with Steph in San Jose I found myself all alone again. As I stood waiting for my next bus, I noticed something written on my ankle: "HOLA!" the penned message read. I'd never been so happy to realize I'd drank too much the night before.

Thanks Tara. Thanks Buellers. Thanks random others and those to come.